A Certain Scientific Magnet
by John Row
Summary: Zack may be an Electromaster officially, but that doesn't stop him from calling himself a "Magnetmaster". Working in judgement branch 232 with his Railgun obsessed partner Milla, Zack is determined to (among other things) make it big and reach level 5!...eventually...
1. A Not So Scientific Incident

Zack flipped through the newspaper pages rapidly. The amount of people was making it hard to concentrate on both paying attention and being inconspicuous. This park was particularly full, even by Academy City standards, though Zack couldn't think of one reason why.

"Milla," Zack spoke into his earpiece as he lifted up the newspaper in front of him and smacked it. "Can you believe this was the most universal source of information at one point in time?"

"Zack this is hardly the time to make small talk..." Milla quickly replied.

"I thought this guy wasn't supposed to show up for another ten minutes."

"That was just Anti-Skills estimate, it's not like the target is going to show up on the exact second, the Judgement briefing was very clear on that." another silence set in, like the last few dozen times since they started this mission. Zack heaved a sigh.

"Y'know, when Anti-Skill asked us to help with a-"

"Covert operation I didn't think it would be so boring?" another silence. Zack looked through the crowd. he could still see the table where this meeting was supposed to take place. Just an ordinary picnic table. It was a good thing it wasn't in the middle of summer or Zack might've been burned to a crisp at this point.

"Zack." Milla's serious tone surprised Zack so much he practically jumped out of his seat.

"What?" he said a bit too loudly before covering his mouth. He regained composure after a few

uneasy glances from passersby. He looked to the table and saw someone had sat down on one end of it. A young guy in a business suit, though he hardly looked like any sort of businessman. His hair was all over the place and even from across the park Zack could tell he had a severe 5 o'clock shadow.

"Wow, that guy really needs to know how to act the part he's given."

"Because you are doing yours just perfectly." Milla replied sarcastically. Zack watched as the guy pulled a small briefcase onto the table and peaked inside before pulling out a small stack of bills.

"Wow. These guys are idiots." Milla said, also dumbstruck at this point.

"I guess now we know why Anti-Skill was okay with us handling this stakeout thing. Now we just wait for his friend to show. Do you see him from your vantage point?" Zack asked as he pulled the newspaper back up, not noticing the other two men in suits approaching him.

"Hey, kid." Zack lowered the newspaper to find himself in the looming shadow of two very intimidating buff guys. Zack looked at them before briskly raising the paper up as nonchalantly as he could manage. One of them tapped the top of the newspaper and it quickly caught on fire. Zack let out a less than manly scream as it all turned to ash at his feet. He looked back up to see that not only were the two men closer, but the entire rest of the park was empty, and that the briefcase guy was looking right at him, smirking. Zack stuck out his tongue in response. The guy's smirk vanished in annoyance and he made a signal to one of the goons in front of Zack. They menacingly and unnecessarily began cracking their knuckles and chuckling.

"I thought hired goons only did that on TV." Zack sighed "Nice belt buckle by the way." Zack pointed his finger at the buckle and a small but visible electric bolt shot into it. Zack used his ability, and the first goon flew crotch-first into the second one. They were dazed, but Zack quickly unbuckled both their belts and wrapped them around both of them. Glancing back at the table, He saw that the carrier had already left. He looked around and saw him duck into an alleyway just outside the park.

"Milla, you there?" Zack said, trying to decide what to do next. Anti-skill had been very clear they didn't want either of them to get more involved than they had to. The only reason they requested assistance was because they thought students would look more inconspicuous. There was no response. Zack gritted his teeth and rushed after the suitcase carrier.

The alleyway was narrower than he would've preferred, which slowed him down. It led out into a crowded street with tons of people. Zack panicked for a second before realizing the massive amount of noise coming from across the street. He rushed forward just as several gunshots to rang out. The crowd immediately burst into panic, and Zack got pushed to the ground. He got up only to find that the entire area was now devoid of people, save for the carrier and an unfortunate salaryman hostage, who the carrier had pulled in front of him with a gun to his head.

"Don't come any closer, kid!" He shouted menacingly. Zack gritted his teeth in frustration. He could try to disable the gun from there, but he would risk it going off or the guy escaping, and using his whip was not an option either. Zack quickly glanced left and right to see if any signs of help were arriving.

"Yeah sorry but your on your own, kid. No one is going to be coming within fifty feet of this street. We have more power than you or your friends at anti-skill realize." He began to back away slowly into another alley, when suddenly a high schooler practically came out of nowhere and punched the carrier in the back of his neck. There was a loud screech and the air shifted, almost clearing up, despite Zack never feeling something weird, like it had been there but he hadn't realized it until it was gone. He fell to his knee as this strange shift caused him to feel lightheaded. He looked back up and saw the salaryman uneasily gaining his balance and running off tightly holding onto his suitcase. Zack didn't try to stop him, he was probably just trying to get out of the area, and he was still feeling too dizzy to try and grab him for questioning. The high schooler was still there, and pulled what looked like a small scrap of paper from the back of the carriers suit collar. Had it been there the whole time?

"Magic? But how did it get into academy city?" The high schooler mumbled to himself. He looked over to Zack.

"Are you with judgement? Can you handle this? I've got to get somewhere." Zack nodded as he managed to get back on his feet. Suddenly a ringing came from his pocket and he pulled out a cell phone, quickly answering it. Almost immediately, a high pitched scream came through the receiver, and the high schooler pulled it away from his ear. It was even loud enough for Zack to hear it from where he was. "Touma" it said, though very drawn out and angry. The high schooler quickly pulled his cell phone back to his ear and began talking frantically to whoever was on the other end of the call.

"Sorry, I got caught up in something, I'll be back soon with the gro-" He stopped mid sentence and looked up the street. Zack followed his gaze and saw what looked like several crushed

grocery bags, probably knocked out of someone's hands when all the civilians ran from the carriers gunshot, and subsequently crushed by the same civilians. Zack got a pretty good idea of who the groceries belonged to when the high schooler quickly dashed over to them and let out a huge drawn out groan.

"Just my luck, they've all been crushed!" He moaned loudly. "don't worry Index, I'll go back to the store and- Oh no, the stuff on sale is probably sold out by now!" More screaming from the cell phone, and the high schooler ran away, trying to calm whoever he was talking too. Zack could do nothing but watch in amazement at the bizarre spectacle he had just witnessed. Finally regaining composure, he walked over to the now unconscious suit case carrier, except...There was no suitcase. Zack looked around frantically, but it was nowhere to be found. It suddenly dawned on him, the salary man had the suitcase when he ran. Smacking himself on the head, Zack let out his own drawn out groan. He looked back down to the carrier, and noticed the piece of paper the high schooler had grabbed. He must've dropped it when he rushed off. Zack picked it up carefully. It was folded neatly, in a way that would've made it tuck easily onto the collar of the carriers suit. There was some weird writing on it, but it was scratched in a bizarre way, almost like the text shattered. Zack thought back to what happened. The high schooler punched where the paper most likely was located on the back of the carriers collar. The strange feeling in the air also disappeared at the same time. Assuming this paper was the cause of that weird feeling, then the high schooler must've intentionally punched it when he snuck up behind the carrier. The whole situation baffled Zack, who could do nothing but stare at the paper. He pocketed it hesitantly, unsure if it could activate again, and decided to hand it over to anti-skill later. He tapped his earpiece, but no sound came through. He pulled out his cell phone and nervously dialed his supervisor's number. There was going to be hell to pay for this…


	2. Breaking Desks and Bending Beams

"-and in the end you let him get away!? Because of some hocus pocus BS?" Maura was just wrapping up her chewing out of Zack when Felix walked in from the office door. Maura groaned loudly and stormed out. Felix whistled jokingly as he walked in and sat at his desk.

"I take the day off and this is what happens? Man you really know how to screw up simple things." Zack stayed silent, keeping his head hung.

"Felix will you please shut up? He already got an earful from the supervisor, and his senior." Milla scolded him as she entered the room.

"Yup. I got here at the tail end of the senior chew out thing." Felix said as he spun around in his chair. Zack stayed silent and it wasn't until Milla sat at her desk that both she and Felix noticed how silent Zack was. They both stared in silence, unsure of what to do, when they heard a slight snore come from the motionless Zack. They both groaned loudly and Milla tossed one of her marbles at him, making sure to accelerate its speed a decent amount. It hit him square in the top of his head, and he jolted up, quickly tipping over backwards and falling out of his chair.

"Think you accelerated it a bit too much?" Felix said when Zack didn't get back up.

"Hm. Guess I don't know my own strength." Milla cooed proudly.

"I'll be training at the usual place." Zack said as he got up and half walked half stumbled out of the office. Milla and Felix watched him go, trying not to laugh when he walked straight into the closed door. When he finally left, an awkward silence set in.

"Y'know, you might've hurt more than his head with that marble." Felix said as he began perusing the internet on his laptop.

"What, his brain?"

"His feelings…"

"Meh." Milla responded indifferently. Another silence set in.

"You know maybe you should stop stalking Railgun online and go talk it out with your boyfriend." Felix joked, but quickly grabbed his laptop and ducked under the marble storm that Milla responded with. He looked up to see she was bright red for a split second before giving him a downright scary smile.  
"Felix, you say the funniest thing sometimes…" Felix slowly put his laptop back on his desk, trying to ignore the new holes in it. He would have to replace it pretty soon...again.

Zack concentrated his esper ability, and began bending the steel girder. It was always easy to find a construction site in academy city. Though not always easy to find one with few people around. He bent it into a pretzel shape and slowly set it onto the ground. He had been doing this for a while, it was his way of exercising his esper ability. He took a few more seconds to breathe before putting the girder back into its original shape and place. He collapsed on his back only to see Milla standing over him, though he was too tired to even act surprised.

"You done here mister magnet master?" She asked sarcastically, but with a warm smile on her face.  
"Yes, miss wannabe railgun." He replied equally sarcastically. She lightly booted him on his head before sitting down.

"Is this how you tired enough to fall asleep while getting lectured?" Milla asked, inspecting the various metals nearby.  
"Kinda. Your lucky you can just exercise your ability by accelerating marbles at targets."

"Yeah well I'm still a far way off from something comparable to Railgun."

"You don't say." He replied as she booted him on the head again.

"Jerkwad." She said, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Though this is the other reason I've been tired recently." Zack continued, pulling the scrap of paper from the last incident out of his pocket. Milla snatched it out of his hand and inspected the smudged writing.

"What is it?" She asked, acting more intrigued than Zack had anticipated.

"No clue. It was on the scene, after that high schooler left. I meant to turn it in as evidence to Anti-Skill, but forgot. Not sure what they would've done with it, considering how skeptical they were about the rest of my story."  
"Can't really blame them. It is pretty far fetched." Milla replied, still inspecting the paper.

"You don't believe me either then?" Zack said, sounding a little more disappointed than he intended to.

"Well you've never been much of a liar, or a very good one either, but you certainly seemed dead set on this story…" Milla mumbled before tossing the paper back to Zack.

"Been looking online for something like this. All I've gotten is a bunch of occult randomness about sanctity of a church or mumbo jumbo like that."  
"Weird." Zack pocketed the piece of paper and the two of them sat in silence. They made eye contact for a second, but then awkwardly averted their gaze, both turning bright red. Zack was thankful when he heard voices approaching.  
"Whelp, time to go…" He said, sitting up and hurrying out of the construction site, followed closely by Milla.


	3. (d)Evolved Into A Stalker

Zack was finished with his classes and on his way back to his dorm when he heard a rather unique ringtone. A violin playing a complicated song, it was Milla. He sighed as he pulled his phone out, hoping it wasn't something too nutty.

"Yup?"

"Zack you need to come here right now." The urgency in Milla's voice was startling and he instinctively switched his path toward their judgement branch.

"What? Did Felix do something?" He usually was the cause of urgent situations.

"No nothing like that and him it's just- Look, I'm going to send you my phones GPS tracking number, you should be able to find me with it, just come as quick as you can." Zack let out another sigh as Milla hung up, and a few seconds later texted the number. He entered it in his phone and saw that she was almost 2 miles away, and in the opposite direction of their judgement office. Zack pulled his bag over his shoulder and pulled out his whip. Designed by Maura and built by Felix, it used extremely thin metal strands woven into the whip itself, allowing Zack to control it using his esper ability, even being able to effect its length and hardness. He lashed it onto a nearby light post and swung himself up onto it, then doing the same to the top of a building. Zack has never been fazed by heights, which is probably why he was able to quickly master flinging himself all over Academy City at the preliminary cost of a few broken bones.

Zack landed on a building near where Milla was supposed to be, and managed to spot peeking down the street from an alley. Extremely suspiciously, and her being that out of her usual calm cool demean could only mean one thing: Makoto Misaka was somehow involved. He attempted to get her attention by waving his hands wildly, but she wasn't facing his direction enough. He spotted a metal trash can near her, and started moving it in her direction. She quickly heard the scraping and almost instinctively began scanning the rooftops, spotting Zack quickly. Zack waved mockingly at her and she motioned for him to come down. He reluctantly made a crude ladder on the side of the building he was on and climbed down. When he reached the bottom he tried his best to manipulate the ladder naturally back into its original placing, but gave up when he couldn't get it quite right on the third try.

"Good enough" he muttered to himself.

"Hardly, but we don't have time for that." Zack jumped slightly when he realized Milla had darted across the street while he was focusing on the wall.

"Sheesh. So what is this about? What does Railgun do to warrant you calling me all the way out here?" She turned away, obviously annoyed that he was able to guess what this was about so easily, and began peeking out of the alley.

"Hurry up. We're lucky they stopped moving when she yelled at him a little." It suddenly dawned on him why she was hiding.

"Oh no…" he groaned.

"Shut up, they're moving towards the northern fields near the river." Milla hissed as she turned back to him. Zack reluctantly peeked over her, and saw who he could only assume was Railgun being followed by some guy in a white school uniform. For some reason he looked kind of familiar, but Zack shook that thought off when they went out of sight. Milla was about to keep following but Zack grabbed her shoulder.

"As adorable as your obsession is, it is probably a bad idea to keep following them." Milla looked back at him, then back in the direction Railgun went, then back at Zack, then back to the direction Railgun went, like a cat messing with someone who just opened up a door for them.

"I suppose it would be bad if she saw us." Milla admitted reluctantly "Plus I think we both know you can't do stealth."

Zack sighed and began walking away, with Milla following. They had walked maybe ten paces when a giant arc of lightning flashed above the hill overlooking the field where Railgun had gone. Zack jumped and slowly turned to see Milla already halfway up the hill. He groaned loudly before chasing after her.


	4. Technology or Toys?

"-and then did you see the way she moved all those metal particles around?!" Milla had been in full fangirl mode for almost a day straight, and was only just now starting to cool off. Zack was almost ready to rip his own ears off, so it was a welcome change. They had ended up walking to their judgement branch together, probably because Milla knew Zack was the only one capable of putting up with her inner fangirl. He thought back to the night where they witnessed what he could only describe as a disaster.

He had managed to catch Milla at the crest of the hill, but was so amazed by what they saw that he ended up spacing out and watching it with her. Railgun and the guy were fighting, but it was bizarre beyond belief. The guy didn't fight back, but none of Railguns attacks seemed to do any damage. It was after some initial lightning strikes that Railgun made a what looked like a metal particle saw blade. When she lunged at him with it, Zack was about to try and intervene, fearing that she would shred the guy to bits, but even when it looked like it hit him, he kept going. She summoned an ever bigger particle cloud, but that didn't seem to do anything either. Then they….held hands? At least that was what it looked like before he raised his fist to hit her. Zack snapped out of his trance and was about to try and intervene again when the guy collapsed to the ground. There was a ridiculous silence that set onto the entire field, before Railgun screamed something and let out a lightning strike so huge it threw Zack and Milla back and knocked them out cold.

Despite the fact that Railgun had knocked them both out, Milla woke up first and smacked Zack awake before entering fangirl mode.

"I hope that guy is okay." Zack stated after thinking back on that night.

"Dunno, but I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't turned to ash with all that lightning Railgun let out." Milla replied wistfully, not sounding to concerned about how that would be murder. Though since none of the lightning from before had affected the guy Railgun was fighting, Zack figured he was probably safe...hopefully.

"You know, if you used your powers like that, you could be just like Railgu-"

"I don't _want_ to be like Railgun!" Zack snapped before she could finish her suggestion. She quickly realized she had touched a nerve, and they continued on in a now extremely awkward silence.

When they made it to their judgement branch they found Felix tinkering with what looked like a pair of gloves and sneakers.

"Isn't there a better place to work on your gadgets? You'll set off the fire alarms again." Milla complained as they both walked up to see what he was doing.

"Eh relax these things are way past that stage of development. At least they should be." He replied calmly, not even looking up at either of them. Milla rolled her eyes and sat at her desk. Zack did the same and a silence set in as they logged into their computers.

"You're not even going to ask what I'm working on?" Felix asked, an obvious dose of disappointment in his voice.

"No." Milla and Zack replied simultaneously.

"Really? Because it will-"

"NO." They repeated. Maura happened to walk in at the same time and cocked her head in confusion.

"No what? What did he propose this time?" She asked.

"No, we didn't want to know what stupid project Felix was working on." Milla explained.

"Really? I got that stuff approved for you two." Milla and Zack quickly stopped what they were doing and gathered around Felix's desk.

"Ye of little faith…" Felix muttered as he picked up the stuff on his desk.

"This," He began, tapping on the fingerless gloves, which upon closer inspection had a massive amount of tiny metal plates on the palm and fingers. "Is a neat little thing I designed for Zack. Using your esper ability to control larger objects can be hard to calculate, but with this you should be able to pick up heavy metals with your hands. It will take some getting used to, but if you focus your ability on the palm, it will act as a secondary magnet, giving you some grip on whatever you're pulling, rather than relying fully on your ability" He tossed the gloves to Zack and he hesitantly put them on, then looked down at his whip.  
"I wouldn't try it here if-" Just as Felix began to warn Zack, he tried channeling his ability into the gloves, but the whip flew out of its holster and he began to panic as it starting flying out, but Maura quickly snatched it midair in the blink of an eye. Her Focus ability was truly terrifying at times.

"Please don't wreck the office. I get enough complaints about tidiness from our supervisors as is." She said, calmly pushing her glasses back into place nonchalantly as if she hadn't just subdued an out of control weapon.

"Anyways…" Felix continued, handing the sneakers to Milla. "These aren't as flashy or techy as those gloves. They're just reinforced with metal plates, so you can propel things with your foot and power simultaneously."

"So, what? I can play football with a wrecking ball now?" Milla said, sounding slightly disappointed as she put her new shoes on.

"Well if you don't have a free hand it would be a shame to stub your toe." Zack joked, hiding his internal terror at the thought of Milla kicking a wrecking ball.

"Meh." Milla mumbled as she finished putting them on and stood up.

"Well now that you have received your new tech, it's time to actually get to work."

"Kay." Milla replied, still distracted by her new shoes. Zack pulled off the gloves and put them in his bag as he went back to his desk. After he sat down, an interesting thought crossed his mind. If the plates in Millas shoes were metal, then couldn't he…

"Zack." Milla said from across the room, he peeked around his desk and saw her glaring straight at him. She mouthed "Don't even think about it" before going back on her computer. Apparently she was psychic now too.


End file.
